The British English usage is the ending "ice" for the noun and "ise" for the verb. E.g., I would advise you that the advice is to practise the practice of grammar. Americans use "ise" in all cases.

Sorry to disagree, but I am an American, and I was taught the correct usage of each in school.

Alan...I think you meant to write that Americans use "ice" not "ise" for the word practice. (I'm from the US) Americans always use practice, not practise. (Even as I tried to write practise the spellcheck keeps trying to correct me). I wonder if the spellcheck does that if you live in the UK?

DJL...Americans never use the word "practise"...so in the US there would be no "correct usage" of each...unless you mean that it would be correct to use "practise" when communicating with a Brit.

No, I thought he was saying that Americans always say advise, even when they mean advice.

AdamJ

Personally, I'm not really bothered by other people's poor English usage or grammar, provided they get their intended meaning across. In any case, language is constantly evolving so many examples of what we consider bad English now might well enter dictionaries some time in the future. One example is 'miniscule', which is spelt that way so often that it has entered many dictionaries as an official variant of 'minuscule.' And that's fine. Just like the law, language is our servant, not vice versa.

Anyway, to give this thread a photographic flavour, and in case anyone cares about getting it right, please note that 'lens' is a singular noun. If you want to describe something that a lens has, it is lens's, not lens'. The plural equivalent is lenses'. Similarly, someone's name ending with an 's' is singular, e.g. Mr Harris's, Miss Perkins's, not Mr Harris' or Miss Perkins'. I mention it because, although it seems right to me that popular, enduring spelling variants should enter the dictionary, I don't think bad grammar should be passed into official usage quite so readily.

Personally, I'm not really bothered by other people's poor English usage or grammar, provided they get their intended meaning across.

+1

In our text and twitter generation why do we blame the education system?When listening to the news sometimes the anchor starts reading off twitter "so and so wrote @bs and #wth". Maybe I have turned in to my dad but all I can say is stf... and turn the channel.

In the third grade my teacher would have hit my knuckles with a ruler if I had written anything like this.

Would that be old Australian or current Australian, when I grew up the Australian language was referred to as “strine”. My grandchildren didn’t know what it meant.

Strewth! That's not true blue. We need Kev07 back with some detailed programmatic specificity to ensure no grandchildren are given the rough end of the pineapple when it comes to learning about our heritage. They deserve a fair shake of the sauce bottle, too. Ok...Got ta zip.

(I know Ruddy isn't the best example, but at least he's a high profile person who tried. I always felt very patriotic when reports filtered back from international conferences that the translators couldn't translate his speeches into English.)

By the way, love this thread. I thought it was serious for a moment until I realised that most of the people professing their knowledge of English were clearly wrong. Not sure what the subversive intention is by giving people incorrect grammatical information, but very entertaining anyway.

IMHO, outside of a formal environment, getting upset at someone's spelling is pointless. Firstly, as long as they get their message across, who cares how they do it. Secondly, poor spelling and grammar is more likely a language, cultural or educational matter. Telling someone to get the spelling in order isn't going to automatically make them better at it. Instead, its just going to discourage them from being an active participant here. And I know that is nobody's intention or desire. Maybe there are better ways to help people? Perhaps find a polite way to point it out in a thread where you see a problem? At work I often come across people who aren't as good at communicating as they want to be. FWIW, my current favourite solution is Toastmasters.

Kwanon

You can't teach all foreigners correct english by yourself because you posted this...Get over it. If anything it will bother you even more after you posted this.Maybe you should teach us english through Skype or something.

By the way, love this thread. I thought it was serious for a moment until I realised that most of the people professing their knowledge of English were clearly wrong. Not sure what the subversive intention is by giving people incorrect grammatical information, but very entertaining anyway.

IMHO, outside of a formal environment, getting upset at someone's spelling is pointless. Firstly, as long as they get their message across, who cares how they do it. Secondly, poor spelling and grammar is more likely a language, cultural or educational matter. Telling someone to get the spelling in order isn't going to automatically make them better at it. Instead, its just going to discourage them from being an active participant here. And I know that is nobody's intention or desire. Maybe there are better ways to help people? Perhaps find a polite way to point it out in a thread where you see a problem? At work I often come across people who aren't as good at communicating as they want to be. FWIW, my current favourite solution is Toastmasters.

Correct spelling is there for many good reasons, including informal environments: searching the internet, for example, is that more difficult if words are spelled incorrectly; and selling or buying on eBay etc are more difficult if the seller or buyer spells incorrectly (I recall someone selling software for the commonly misspelled words so you could increase your chances of finding a bargain!).

I opened this thread not because of being upset but, as you wished it to be, as a polite way of instruction for the most commonly misspelled word. It is very interesting how it has developed a life of its own.

You can't teach all foreigners correct english by yourself because you posted this...Get over it. If anything it will bother you even more after you posted this.Maybe you should teach us english through Skype or something.

I think most people that speak English as their first language are very tolerant and understanding of those that speak English as their second or third language....I know I am.

My annoyance(and maybe others) comes from people that were born, raised, and educated in a country like the US, where English is the primary language, but yet somehow they have never learned to write properly.

With Google, the internet, free libraries, and free k-12 public schools, there is no excuse for not understanding basics like your and you're....to and too...their, they're, and there. If you didn't learn it in school, then learn it as an adult. These words are used all the time when writing....all the time.

Why keep making the same mistake over and over again for the rest of your life? It's more disappointing than annoying that someone is ok with that.

You can't teach all foreigners correct english by yourself because you posted this...Get over it. If anything it will bother you even more after you posted this.Maybe you should teach us english through Skype or something.

Keeping with the theme of this thread, I'd like to inform you that English is always spelled with a capital "E". I agree with Northstar that most native English speakers are very tolerant of English as a second language (ESEL) speakers, and most ESEL speakers are always trying to improve their English skills. The same holds true for native English speakers learning other languages.

Here in Brazil we speak Portuguese. Currently, all countries speaking Portuguese are undergoing an agreement to unify the rules of spelling. I understand English, but not enough to write correctly, then translate by Google, then fix several times. The conjugation of verbs in Portuguese has no equivalent words in English. In English someone can say: I DO. YOU DO. HE DOES. In Portuguese we say:EU FAÇOTU FAZESELE FAZNÓS FAZEMOSVÓS FAZEISELES FAZEMNow imagine a verb that represents the hypothetical future, or the past hypothetical...Also the order of words in the sentence is quite different, and Google Translator looks like the speech of MASTER YODA in the film Star Wars.

I agree with some of the comments in regards to perhaps a part of the population not caring for grammar, it's a fact that some people don't care, I know, 'I do' ;-) I'm not perfect, far from it, but I try.